Tuesday, 25 October 2016

High profile delegations of the international money transfer operator, Tempo Money Transfer, and one of the leading Bangladesh banks, Uttara, held a meeting at Tempo's headquarters in Paris.

The president of Banque du France-licensed Tempo, Mr Jeffrey Phaneuf, and its commercial representative, Mr Sayed Khan, represented the company at the meeting.

The other party was represented by Mr Maksudul Hasan, deputy managing director, and Mr Khandaker Ali Samnoon, general manager of Uttara Bank.

During the meeting, both parties expressed keen interest to collaborate further in advancing the EU-to-Bangladesh corridors, particularly from France and Germany to Bangladesh.

"We discussed in detail operational items, like enhancing our IT interface to improve and speed up transactions and our ability to quickly confirm payment status, as well as obtaining better exchange rates for our clients," said Mr Phaneuf in his comments about the meeting.

Both parties agreed that the project has proved its importance and potential.

"We agreed to further improve service and ultimately achieve higher wire volumes and revenues."

Mr Maksudul Hasan said that the plans to drastically step up the joint venture have a great chance for success.

“Demand is on the rise in Bangladesh and the number of clients is growing too. In combination with Uttara's strong position in the market, this creates a solid foundation for all business indicators to grow," he said.

Both parties found the meeting instrumental in further developing their business.

Tempo and Uttara started a joint project in June 2015.

The collaboration enables clients to receive money sent from Tempo's locations in France and Germany, and collect cash in Uttara Bank’s branches in Bangladesh. Uttara Bank Limited operates through more than 200 online branches, spread across urban and rural areas, with more potential business locations within Bangladesh.

Tempo has over 160 locations in France and Germany, focusing on outbound transactions. It continues to actively develop its partnership network in Asia.

The total number of locations where services are available increased to 195,000 while the number of countries has almost reached 120.

Prior to using HooYu, Fonmoney sometimes had to use man-hours to manually review ID documents before transactions could proceed as part of Anti-Money Laundering compliance requirements. This sometimes meant that customer approvals could take two to three hours if the information given was incomplete, meaning that customers who transacted overnight might not be approved until the next working day.

HooYu is now being integrated into the Fonmoney site so that users can now quickly and easily be verified through HooYu’s unique combination of digital footprint analysis, ID document authentication, facial biometrics and identity scoring. Once the customer has passed the automated HooYu ID confirmation, they can send money abroad to friends or family quickly and easily with low fees and great exchange rates.

The team at Fonmoney was well prepared for the risks of online money transfer and could see that fraudsters were trying to transact with fake passports and stolen payment card details. Fonmoney looked to database-led ID checks to verify their customers, but with ten local language sites already live, they needed a service that would work equally well for customers using Irish, Turkish, Polish, Romanian and French corridors amongst others.

Matthias Wurmböck, Managing Partner at Fonmoney said, “On one hand, using HooYu means that we are not just ticking compliance boxes and preventing fraud, but more importantly to us, HooYu helps us make the journey for all of our customers more efficient and smooth. They have been a good partner to us in helping to ensure that we are in line with customer identity checking compliance, while localising their platform together to ensure the best possible customer experience as we continue to grow into new markets.”

David Pope, Marketing Director at HooYu said, “The money transfer industry needs an identity confirmation service to help verify identity where traditional database checks fall short. Our approach of not just checking an ID document, but looking at the wider picture by using digital footprint analysis and facial biometrics in conjunction with ID document authentication helps firms like Fonmoney to build true confidence that their customers are indeed, who they say they are.”

Veronica Studsgaard, CEO at the International Association of Money Transfer Networks said, “Money remitters are constantly striving to meet the challenges of ever growing remittance volumes and increased regulatory requirements. KYC technologies like HooYu are helping remitters to verify and welcome new customers, speed up the flow of money and to meet regulatory requirements.”

HooYu was established as a global identity verification platform to help businesses authenticate customer identity.

The HooYu service is integrated into a merchant’s site and customers are asked to take three simple steps:

Take a selfie

Share their online identity such as Facebook or LinkedIn and take a photo of their driving licence, ID card or passport.

HooYu extracts and scores the identity information from the user’s online identity and ID documents, HooYu then authenticates their ID document and completes a biometric facial verification.

About HooYu

HooYu is a global identity confirmation service used not only by businesses that need to check their customers are who they say they are, but also by consumers who want to check another person’s identity before they proceed with an important or sensitive transaction.

HooYu's approach is to use universal tokens of identity including social media, digital footprints, identity documents and facial biometrics to confirm identity.

HooYu cross-references and analyses data from a person’s digital footprint to confirm their real-world identity. HooYu also extracts and verifies data from ID documents at the same time as authenticating the ID document and conducting a biometric facial check comparing a selfie of the customer with the facial image on their ID document.

Fonmoney is an FCA regulated money transfer company whose mission is to improve the way migrants send money home. The Fonmoney aim is to simplify remittance, be affordable and speak the migrant’s language. The Fonmoney team is a broad mix of former bankers, mobile developers and scientists representing more than ten nationalities.

Thursday, 13 October 2016

International money transfer system, Tempo Money Transfer issued the results for the period July - September of 2016.

The Paris-headquartered remittances provider said in a statement that the number of agent locations soared to more than 180 in Germany and France.

The company's main focus of activity, is sending money from these two countries to the rest of the world, which makes the indicator very important for its operations, said the president of Tempo, Mr. Jeffrey Phaneuf.

He went on to say that the total number of locations where services are available, increased to reach 195,000 while the number of countries has almost reached 120.

The spectrum of services includes traditional cash payout, account-crediting, home delivery, cell phone topping up and remote bill payments in various countries.

Mr. Phaneuf said that by the end of Q3, the system has achieved a new operational level.

Within July-September, the company successfully stepped up its international network, particularly in Africa.

For example, the France and Germany - based remittances provider, which already holds a solid presence in Africa, and has rolled out its pay-out networks in Nigeria, Guinea, Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania, Sierra Leone and Comoros, launched a project in some of the Central African and West Africa nations including – Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Congo, Gabon, and Rwanda. The completion of the project provides the customer with more than 400 pay-out locations.

“As a company specialized in outbound transactions from one of the most vibrant EU markets, (France and Germany) , we pay special attention to the developments in Africa and Asia. The demand for services is coming mostly from working migrants. We can clearly see the increasing trend in the number of African and Asian nationals settling in European countries. Hence the demand for low cost and quality services is growing,” Mr. Phaneuf said.

Phaneuf said that in 2016, the company diligently follows its main goals and principles, looking at increasing financial indicators in each project.

“We continue to place emphasis on low transaction costs. This makes for an effective decrease in the black market and brings money transfers into the open, regulated sphere. This benefits the host country's economy and our customers.”

Wednesday, 5 October 2016

The France and Germany - based international remittance provider, Tempo Money Transfer signed an agreement with Miami-headquartered company, CAM Transfer, to commence joint operations in the Canadian market.The integration project completion will enable clients to send moneyfrom over 180 Tempo locations in Germany and France and collect cash in CAM's agent locations in Canada.CAM Transfer is in partnership with over 40 agents, according to general manager for the company, Mr. Fred Tony. The president for Tempo, Mr. Jeffrey Phaneuf said it is the first project for the company in Northern America."We see great potential in this remittances corridor (Germany and France to Canada). This is due to growing economic ties and quite large various ethnic communities, present in all three countries," he said in his comments of the large scale joint venture. He went on to say that according to company estimations, the market volume is currently in the range of $30 - $32 billion, with the potential to grow further.He said the segment has experienced between 14-15-percent growthyear-on-year. Mr. Phaneuf added that Tempo has been actively carrying out its program of international development. It's wide range of services, from account crediting to cash pick-up and cell phone topping, is available in over 120 countries, with the number of locations exceeding 195,000.Mr. Tony is also very positive about the project's prospects."We will be able to provide clients with excellent quality of service.Given the positions of Tempo and CAM in the market and growing demand, we are confident in our opportunities to jointly achieve new operational and financial heights. We believe the collaboration is going to be very fruitful."

About Me

The International Association of Money Transfer Networks is the only global international trade organisation that represents Money Transfer Industry / Payment Institutions providing cross border payments. Founded in 2005, provides a platform for industry partners to come together to discuss common challenges, industry initiatives, and create opportunities. IAMTN works closely with governments, regulators, regional associations and all other stakeholders to champion the creation of the most effective, safe, reliable and efficient payment system.